If this comes close to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on Friday, it will signal a decent if unspectacular start to the New Year. ADP estimates that employers added 257,000 private-sector jobs last month, an increase of 40,000 jobs over its estimate for November, and the best result for all of 2015:

Private sector employment increased by 257,000 jobs from November to December according to the December ADP National Employment Report®. Broadly distributed to the public each month, free of charge, the ADP National Employment Report is produced by ADP® in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis.

The news isn’t all good. In fact, it shows that 2015 closed out at a lower rate of job creation than 2014, at least on the ADP scale:

“2015 had a strong close with December showing the largest job gains of the year,” said Ahu Yildirmaz, VP and head of the ADP Research Institute. “Overall, the average monthly employment growth was just under 200,000 for the year in contrast to almost 240,000 jobs per month in 2014. Weakness in the energy and manufacturing sectors was mostly responsible for the drop off.”

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, said, “Strong job growth shows no signs of abating. The only industry shedding jobs is energy. If this pace of job growth is sustained, which seems likely, the economy will be back to full employment by mid-year. This is a significant achievement, given that the last time the economy was at full employment was nearly a decade ago.”

Neither of these levels suggest blockbuster growth. The US economy needs to generate around 150,000 jobs a month to keep up with population growth at current workforce-participation rates. Coming in “just under 200,000 a month” isn’t enough growth to make significant dents in the ranks of sidelined workers from the Great Recession, and seeing the growth level subside over the last year doesn’t produce much confidence that December’s outlier result will sustain in 2016.

Last week, the Joint Economic Committee of Congress issued a new report on the Obama recovery that’s loaded with even more bleak news.

On almost every measure examined, the 2009-15 recovery since the recession ended in June of 2009 has been the meekest in more than 50 years.

Start with the broadest measure: growth in output. The chart with this editorial compares the Obama growth pace with that of the average recovery coming out of the last eight recessions, and with the Reagan recovery, and over the same number of months (77).

Democrats used to disparage the Reagan expansion as nothing special. Yet the growth rate over the first 25 quarters under Reagan was 34%, vs. 14.3% under Obama.

How much does this matter? If we had grown at an average pace, GDP in 2015 would have been about $1.8 trillion higher. Under the Reagan recovery, growth would have been $2.7 trillion higher. …

But even on a per capita basis, real GDP has grown only 9% vs. 18.8% for the average recovery. That is the lowest of any post-1960 recovery. The growth decline in this key gauge of living standards is alarming.

IBD’s editorial board specifically looked at the jobs data, and found it even worse:

Yes, official unemployment of just over 5% today is very low.

But that’s because 94 million people in America over the age of 16 aren’t in the labor force. Labor force participation rates have fallen sharply for working age Americans. If job growth had been the same as in the average recovery, we would have 5.9 million more Americans working.

Amazingly, if we had had a Reagan-paced job recovery, we would today have at least 12 million more Americans working. That’s more people than in the labor force of Michigan and Indiana combined.

Reuters notes that the news from ADP didn’t get markets excited today:

The data had only a modest impact on U.S. financial markets, which had been jolted overnight by news that North Korea had claimed to have tested a miniaturized hydrogen bomb and by worries about the state of the Chinese economy, the world’s second largest. U.S. equity index futures remained under pressure, suggesting stock prices would open lower, and prices for U.S. Treasuries were solidly higher, although slightly off from the day’s highs.

Consider this a meh, for the most part. If the BLS comes in considerably lower, it might heighten scrutiny on the Fed for raising interest rates for the first time in nearly a decade, but even that would probably be mitigated by the long-term criticism of their zero-interest policy that preceded it.

As a bellwether for the official government report on job creation, ADP has had a rocky record, especially of late. Their reports for last two months widely overshot the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, whose October jobs report will come out on Friday. That makes today’s ADP estimate for private-sector job growth a hint of trouble on the horizon:

Private sector employment increased by 182,000 jobs from September to October according to the October ADP National Employment Report(R). Broadly distributed to the public each month, free of charge, the ADP National Employment Report is produced by ADP(R) in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis. …

Payrolls for businesses with 49 or fewer employees increased by 90,000 jobs in October, almost double the revised September gain of 47,000. Employment among companies with 50-499 employees increased by 63,000 jobs, up 50 percent from the previous month. Employment at large companies — those with 500 or more employees — rose by 29,000 jobs in October after adding 101,000 the previous month. Companies with 500-999 added 7,000 jobs. Companies with over 1,000 employees gained 22,000 jobs, after adding 100,000 in September.

Goods-producing employment rose by 24,000 jobs in October, representing the best month in this sector since January of this year. The construction industry added 35,000 jobs in October, roughly matching September’s gain. Meanwhile, manufacturing remained in negative territory losing 2,000 jobs in October after shrinking by 17,000 in September.

Service-providing employment rose by 158,000 jobs in October, down from a downwardly revised 182,000 in September. The ADP National Employment Report indicates that professional/business services contributed 13,000 jobs in October, less than half the September number. Trade/transportation/utilities grew by 35,000, off slightly from the previous month. The 9,000 new jobs added in financial activities were the fewest in this industry in the last six months.

Just on its face, the addition of 182,000 jobs in a month is barely above a maintenance rate for population growth. The US economy needs to add at least 150,000 jobs a month to keep pace with population expansion. Even if the US had a high rate of workforce participation and a low number of sidelined workers, this wouldn’t be a good month, and the US economy has neither of those conditions.

The problem, though, is that ADP often (but not always) overshoots the mark. Their initial September number was 200K, but the BLS figure came in at 142K in a major whiff. This report knocks their September figure down a bit to 190K, which … is still more than they predict for this month. What does that say about the upcoming BLS report? Tough to say, but it’s even odds that it will come in under the 150K bare maintenance level.

American consumers are spending at healthy levels, encouraged by increased job security, low energy prices and improved family finances. But manufacturers have been hurt by a strong dollar and economic weakness overseas. ADP reported that factories shed 2,000 jobs in October on top of a loss of 17,000 jobs in September.

“We suspect the strength of the dollar remains a constraint on factory payrolls, along with lower petroleum prices negatively impacting on oil drilling and related equipment,” Raymond Stone of Stone McCarthy Research wrote in a research report.

In the end, there are two general ways of looking at this report as a precursor to Friday’s government release. The first is that it’s a sign of bad things to come. ADP’s monthly total trended down and has fallen beneath the 200,000-position threshold to which analysts had become accustomed to seeing in every month since June. One could surmise that a downward trend in the ADP number, whatever that number may be, could be a sign that employment growth slowed in October and that Friday’s official data release is going to be underwhelming.

Or one could just treat the two releases as separate jobs indicators that are prone to monthly fluctuations but at the end of the year generally reach similar employment conclusions. Even though there’s a 94,000-position difference between ADP’s and the government’s August and September reports, the two are only separated by 35,000 positions over the course of the year. So they’re not terribly far off over the long term.

Analysts generally expect Friday’s numbers to show that between 160,000 and 190,000 jobs were created in October. Whether that’s enough for the Federal Reserve to warrant increasing interest rates at the Federal Open Market Committee’s final meeting of the year in December remains to be seen.

When a jobs-added number of 190,000 is the upside of expectations, then stagnation has replaced hope. Get ready for analysts to break out the U word on Friday, and not in a good way.

Earlier today, ADP announced that their survey showed that the US economy added 201,000 jobs in May. It’s the best report since January and hit analysts’ expectations, but revisions to previous months shaved 33,000 jobs off of the cumulative total for 2015:

Private sector employment increased by 201,000 jobs from April to May according to the May ADP National Employment Report®. Broadly distributed to the public each month, free of charge, the ADP National Employment Report is produced by ADP®, a leading global provider of Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions, in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis. …

Payrolls for businesses with 49 or fewer employees increased by 122,000 jobs in May, up from 97,000 in April. Employment among companies with 50-499 employees increased by 65,000 jobs, the same as the previous month. Employment gains at large companies — those with 500 or more employees — increased from April, adding 13,000 jobs in May, up from 3,000. However, companies with 500-999 employees lost 3,000 jobs, after adding no jobs in April. Companies with over 1,000 employees added 16,000 jobs, an improvement from 4,000 the previous month.

Goods-producing employment rose by 9,000 jobs in May, after adding just 1,000 in April. The construction industry had another good month in May adding 27,000 jobs, up from 24,000 last month. Meanwhile, manufacturing lost 5,000 jobs in May, after losing 8,000 in April.

Service-providing employment rose by 192,000 jobs in May, a strong rise from 164,000 in April. The ADP National Employment Report indicates that professional/business services contributed 28,000 jobs in May, down from April’s 35,000. Trade/transportation/utilities grew by 56,000, up from April’s 41,000. The 12,000 new jobs added in financial activities is double last month’s 6,000.

Last month, ADP initially showed an expansion of 169,000 jobs, revised downward now to 165,000. The BLS report came in considerably above that level, with 223,000 jobs added, but with other potential red flags, such as stagnation in wages. If the boost in hiring shows up in the BLS data on Friday, then it might show that the Q1 contraction announced by the BEA last week might be an anomaly.

New orders for manufactured goods in April, down eight of the last nine months, decreased $1.8 billion or 0.4 percent to $476.7 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. This followed a 2.2 percent March increase. Shipments, following two consecutive monthly increases, were virtually unchanged at $482.4 billion. This followed a 0.5 percent March increase. Unfilled orders, down four of the last five months, decreased $1.1 billion or 0.1 percent to $1,202.4 billion. This followed a 0.1 percent March increase. The unfilled orders-to-shipments ratio was 6.98, down from 6.99 in March. Inventories, up two of the last three months, increased $0.6 billion or 0.1 percent to $649.0 billion. This followed a 0.1 percent March decrease. The inventories-to-shipments ratio was 1.35, up from 1.34 in March.

New orders for manufactured durable goods in April, down two of the last three months, decreased $2.3 billion or 1.0 percent to $234.4 billion, up from the previously published 0.5 percent decrease. This followed a 5.1 percent March increase. Transportation equipment, also down two of the last three months, led the decrease, $1.9 billion or 2.4 percent to $77.9 billion. New orders for manufactured nondurable goods increased $0.5 billion or 0.2 percent to $242.3 billion.

Outside of transportation, manufacturing was flat. That doesn’t negate the issue, although it could tend to mitigate it if other areas of the economy provide a backstop for it. The trade deficit provided some indication of improvement from a poor March, suggesting that trade had resumed more of its traditional character:

The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, through the Department of Commerce, announced today that the goods and services deficit was $40.9 billion in April, down $9.7 billion from $50.6 billion in March, revised. April exports were $189.9 billion, $1.9 billion more than March exports. April imports were $230.8 billion, $7.8 billion less than March imports.

The April decrease in the goods and services deficit reflected a decrease in the goods deficit of $9.3 billion to $60.7 billion and an increase in the services surplus of $0.4 billion to $19.8 billion.

It’s not all great news. Imports may have decreased over the past year by $5.4 billion, but exports have also decreased by $4.9 billion over the same period. Still, those improvements over March will add positive margin to the GDP report in Q2, perhaps enough to keep the quarter from going into the red and into recession. If the new job numbers are reflected in the BLS report on Friday, it will indicate that businesses are betting on black ink in the current quarter — but not big growth, either. It’s very much a mixed bag.

Update: Fixed the forgotten link to the trade report, and modified the headline from its draft form.

The private-sector job market made its fourth straight gain, according to the ADP employment report for December 2013. The payroll giant projects from its data that the US economy added 238,000 jobs in the private sector, the best month of the year:

Private sector employment increased by 238,000 jobs from November to December, according to the December ADP National Employment Report®. Broadly distributed to the public each month, free of charge, the ADP National Employment Report is produced by ADP® , a leading global provider of Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions, in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis.

The previous month’s report came in at 229,000, so this is just a small change month-on-month. However, the trend has moved positively since August’s wan 151K result, and the last three months showed above-200K results. Those were the only three months of 2013 above that threshold, and the initial October report from ADP was 166K, while November’s got ramped up from 215K.

The labor market ended 2013 on a roll, with businesses continuing a several-month streak of solid payroll gains by adding 238,000 jobs in December, payroll processor ADP said Wednesday.

Economists expected ADP to report 200,000 additional private-sector jobs, according to a consensus forecast. The Labor Department’s more closely watched survey of businesses and federal, state and local governments, due Friday, is expected to show 195,000 jobs were added last month.

Both employment reports capture similar trends but ADP has had mixed success in forecasting the Labor tally. The two reports sometimes diverge more sharply in December because of holiday absences and the tendency of employers to purge their payrolls of employees who have left the company, says Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist of High Frequency Economics.

The pace of job growth would be a decent increase, but still far below what would be needed to work off the backlog of the millions who have left the workforce over the last four and a half years of “recovery.” More than 10 million have exited, and with the economy needing to add 150,000 a month to keep up wit population growth, only an explosive expansion in the job market will turn around the chronic issue of joblessness. At the rate suggested by this report, it would take 57 months to create enough jobs to put half of that ten million back to work, and that’s only slightly longer than the number of months from the technical recovery in June 2009 to now. Still, the inventory expansion in Q3 suggests that businesses see a boost coming and will be hiring to meet it.

The BLS report will come out on Friday, and we should see the Gallup survey tomorrow.

Tomorrow we will see the August jobs report from the BLS, so today is Tea-Leaves Reading Day. The big leading indicator comes from ADP, the payroll-processing giant, which estimates that the US economy added 176,000 jobs in the private sector last month. That’s a slight miss on expectations, and a drop from the previous month’s ADP report:

Private sector employment increased by 176,000 jobs from July to August, according to the August ADP National Employment Report® . Broadly distributed to the public each month, free of charge, the ADP National Employment Report is produced by ADP® , a leading global provider of Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions, in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonallyadjusted basis. July’s job gain was revised down slightly from 200,000 to 198,000.

This is basically a mid-range report in the context of the past year, as ADP’s chart shows:

CNBC notes that the manufacturing sector got left in the cold last month:

The private sector added 176,000 jobs in August, about in-line with estimates and indicative that the employment picture continues to notch slow but steady gains.

Almost all of the jobs came from the service sector, which added 165,000 positions. …

Economists expected ADP to report private jobs growth of 180,000[.]

Basically, this is job growth at just above maintenance levels, as we have seen for the last four years of so-called recovery. The US economy has to add about 150,000 jobs per month net in order to keep up with population growth. It would take us another decade at this rate to put all of the sidelined workers back in jobs. And let’s not forget that ADP has a track record of overshooting the BLS report, although it has begun to track BLS a bit better over the last couple of years.

What will be the job-growth number tomorrow? Given the big miss on durable goods in July, I’ll guess at 155K and a 7.4% unemployment rate. Take your best guess in the poll below:

Just before the ADP employment report was released this morning, I asked Business Insider’s Joseph Weisenthal to give me his prediction — a rather unfair request in retrospect, since the report was due in 2 minutes at that point. He graciously offered his prediction anyway:

Private sector employment increased by 119,000 jobs from March to April, according to the April ADP National Employment Report® , which is produced by ADP®, a leading provider of human capital management solutions, in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis. The March report, which reported job gains of 158,000, was revised downward to 131,000 jobs.

Goods-producing employment rose by 6,000 jobs in April, its slowest pace of growth in seven months. Though it accounted for most of the weakness in goods production job growth in March, construction growth picked up in April and the industry added 15,000 jobs over the month. Meanwhile, manufacturers shed 10,000 jobs in April—the first decline in three months and the largest since September 2012.

Service-providing jobs increased by 113,000, the weakest pace of growth in seven months.
Among the service industries reported by the ADP National Employment Report,
trade/transportation/utilities had the largest gain with 29,000 jobs added over the month. Professional/business services followed, adding 20,000 jobs, and financial activities added 7,000 jobs.

Normally we put the ADP results through the 60-80% rinse cycle, but they actually missed last month even with that in mind. Their sharp downward revision to the March numbers still puts their estimate far above the BLS figure of 88K in March.

Applying the 60-80% filter to ADP’s new numbers, that would give us a projected figure for the BLS jobs report due Friday at somewhere between 71,000 and 95,0000. That is an ugly, ugly range — at the low end, only half of what is needed just to keep up with population growth. And “ugly” is exactly the word CNBC uses in its headline:

Economists surveyed by Reuters expected the ADP report to show the private sector created 150,000 jobs in April, down from 158,000 in March.

“Nearly every industry has seen slower growth since the beginning of the year,” Moody’s economist Mark Zandi said on CNBC. “Smaller businesses are experiencing much weaker growth.”

The number is out and it’s weak. Analysts were looking for 150K new private sector jobs. …

This chart from the report is particularly interesting. According to ADP, manufacturing actually lost jobs!

Expect pessimism in the markets today, although most of this was probably already suspected. Even the higher expectation of 150K from ADP was a stagnation-level prediction. The BLS report is going to come in well short of that on Friday. Tomorrow, we should have Gallup’s data, and can start framing expectations of the official jobs report, and perhaps more importantly, predict whether the workforce numbers are still eroding past 34-year lows.

Tomorrow the BLS will release the official jobs report for March 2013, so once again we look to ADP and Gallup for predictive indicators. ADP, which uses its extensive payroll-service data to estimate job growth in the private sector, usually comes in higher than the BLS, and that may mean a relatively poor report tomorrow, as ADP estimated growth of only 158,000 jobs last month — barely keeping pace with population growth:

Private sector employment increased by 158,000 jobs from February to March, according to the March ADP National Employment Report®, which is produced by ADP® , a leading provider of human capital management solutions, in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis. Revisions to job gains in the two prior months were offsetting; February’s gain of 198,000 jobs was revised up by 39,000 to 237,000, and January’s 215,000 gain was revised down by 38,000 to 177,000. …

Goods-producing employment rose by 7,000 jobs in March, its slowest pace of growth in six months. Construction added no net jobs over the month; this follows average monthly gains of 29,000 in the three months prior. Meanwhile, manufacturers added 6,000 jobs.

Service-providing jobs increased by 151,000. Among the service industries reported by the ADP National Employment Report, professional/business services had the largest gain with 39,000 jobs added over the month. Trade/transportation/utilities added 22,000 jobs and financial activities added 9,000 jobs.

In other words, the changes to their January and February reports canceled out. Normally, we’d apply an overshoot factor somewhere between 60% and 80% to ADP’s numbers in order to estimate tomorrow’s BLS report. That would set the range from 95K to 126K.

Gallup also reports little to no improvement in the employment picture in its monthly assessment. Using similar survey techniques as the BLS, they show a stagnant workforce participation rate, and a slight uptick in the adjusted unemployment rate:

The U.S. Payroll to Population employment rate (P2P), as measured by Gallup, was 43.4% for the month of March, unchanged from 43.3% in February and in line with the 43.7% found in March 2012.

Gallup’s P2P metric is an estimate of the percentage of the U.S. adult population aged 18 and older who are employed full time by an employer for at least 30 hours per week. P2P is not seasonally adjusted. …

The U.S. workforce participation rate in March was 67.7%, unchanged from 67.8% in February and in March 2012.

Gallup’s unadjusted unemployment rate for the U.S. workforce was 8.0% for the month of March, the same as in February, but a modest improvement from 8.4% in March 2012.

Gallup’s seasonally adjusted U.S. unemployment rate for March was 7.8%, a slight uptick from 7.6% in February, but down since March 2012. Gallup calculates a seasonally adjusted employment rate by applying the adjustment factor the government used for the same month in the previous year. Last year, the government adjusted March’s rate down by 0.2 points, but February’s was adjusted downward by 0.4 points, which accounts for the month-over-month increase in seasonally adjusted unemployment, despite the lack of change in the unadjusted rate.

One government metric showed a sudden and sharp increase in joblessness. Weekly initial jobless claims increased this week by 28,000 to hit 385,000, a level not seen for quite a while:

In the week ending March 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 385,000, an increase of 28,000 from the previous week’s unrevised figure of 357,000. The 4-week moving average was 354,250, an increase of 11,250 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 343,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.4 percent for the week ending March 23, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 23 was 3,063,000, a decrease of 8,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,071,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,067,250, a decrease of 10,500 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,077,750.

That would mean that the claimants lost their jobs in the third week of March, a bump that the BLS may miss in its mid-month surveys. It’s also good to remember that this is an indirectly correlative metric over time, and that single weeks are not terribly reliable indicators, but needless to say it’s not good news for the claimants.

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose to its highest level in four months last week, suggesting the labor market recovery lost some steam in March.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 28,000 to a seasonally adjusted 385,000, the highest level since November, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

It was the third straight week of gains in claims. Coming on the heels of data on Wednesday showing private employers added the fewest jobs in five months in March, the report implied some weakening in job growth after hiring accelerated in February.

Still, they offer this strange prediction:

Employers are expected to have added 200,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, according to a Reuters survey, slowing from February’s brisk 236,000. The jobless rate is seen unchanged at 7.7 percent.

Not only do I think that’s a huge overshoot, I’d bet that the BLS adjusts the February jobs level downward a bit. I’m going to guess that we’ll see an addition of 125,000 jobs in tomorrow’s report — below population growth — and a slight uptick in the jobless rate to 7.8% or a decline in the workforce participation rate to 63.4%.

With the BLS jobs report due on Friday, we once again start looking at the precursor data. ADP, the payroll-processing giant, predicts that the US added 198,0000 jobs in the previous month, which would be a relatively positive report — if reliable:

Private sector employment increased by 198,000 jobs from January to February, according to the February ADP National Employment Report® , which is produced by ADP® , a leading provider of human capital management solutions, in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally adjusted basis. The January 2013 report, which reported job gains of 192,000, was revised upward by 23,000 to 215,000 jobs.

That’s one issue with ADP’s reliability. Their original January analysis overshot the BLS report by 35,000, as the government only showed a water-treading level of 157,000 jobs added. The BLS could certainly revise the previous report, but a revision of that size would have eyes popping and critics demanding some answers. Despite their efforts to reform their analysis to make it more predictive, it seems that it’s still a good idea to use a 60-80% rule when it comes to ADP, whose analyses usually are valuable in defining trends rather than data points. That would put a good guess at Friday’s BLS number at around 160,000 — another water-treading number, and more in line with the economic data coming from January.

In fact, that’s what the market more or less expects, too, according to CNBC:

Private companies added 198,000 jobs in February, well ahead of analyst estimates and indicating that the labor market is continuing to thaw, according to a report Wednesday.

Economists had expected the count by ADP and Moody’s Analytics to show 170,000 new positions.

The report comes two days before the Department of Labor releases its nonfarm payrolls total, which likely will show a net of 152,000 new positions. The Labor numbers include government positions.

Gallup isn’t quite as optimistic. Two weeks ago, they reported that jobseekers couldn’t find any momentum toward “quality” jobs in the market. Their last weekly payroll-to-population figure dropped two tenths of a point to 43.3%, and their take on the unemployment rate (corresponding to the BLS U-3 number) rose two tenths of a point to 8.1%. Gallup surveys roughly parallel those of the BLS Household Survey, which at least theoretically makes it a better predictor for BLS data.

Either way, the numbers don’t show any real momentum to the scale of job creation needed to re-employ the millions that left the workforce in hopelessness over the last five years. We need a lot more than 198,000 jobs per month to get those workers back in the workforce.

Originally, I planned to add this to the GDP announcement — but that was before the BEA laid an egg, and a red egg at that. Instead, let’s look at the early indicator from ADP of Friday’s upcoming BLS jobs report, which is a lot sunnier than Q4 GDP would suggest:

Private sector employment increased by 192,000 jobs from December to January, according to the January ADP National Employment Report®, which is produced by ADP®, a leading provider of human capital management services, in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally adjusted basis. The December 2012 report, which reported job gains of 215,000, was revised downward by 30,000 to 185,000 jobs.

The BLS actually showed an increase of 155,000 jobs in December, significantly below both projections from ADP. Last year, ADP brought Moody’s on board to refine their estimates, which routinely overshot the mark by 40-50%, at least as gauged by BLS findings. The initial December estimate was 39% higher than BLS, and the final number now 19% higher, which indicates that ADP hasn’t entirely solved their estimation problems with Moody’s.

CNBC gave a credulous take on ADP’s figures, although in fairness that came prior to the release of the GDP number:

The private sector created 192,000 new jobs in January, better than expectations and reflective of the slowly improving trend in the labor market.

Small businesses led the way, adding 115,000 new positions. Services again were the most prolific suppliers of new labor, adding 177,000 workers, the bulk coming from the 40,000 in professional and business services jobs.

Is it, though? It’s possible that ADP will get this month exactly on the nose, but a growth rate of 192K isn’t exactly barnbusting job creation, either. It beats the 125K needed to keep up with population growth, but is otherwise a rather wan figure. If, however, ADP overshoots the mark in January as much as it did in December, the number will come in at about 139,000 on Friday — barely at treading-water levels. Besides, comparing initial estimates from ADP and Moody’s, job growth dropped in the ADP series from 215K to 192K, which is hardly the definition of “accelerating.”

With GDP falling into the red in Q4, I’d be skeptical of a significant amount of job growth over population growth. That GDP figure is a contraction, not an expansion, and there’s little reason to think that businesses would have expanded while sales retreated.

Tomorrow will bring the monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so today we have a few indicators to get a hint as to what may come. The preliminary numbers from ADP look promising, although they usually overshoot the mark. According to the payroll-processing firm, the private sector added 215,000 jobs in December:

Private sector employment increased by 215,000 jobs from November to December, according to the December ADP National Employment Report®, which is produced by Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP®), a leading provider of human capital management solutions, in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis. The November 2012 report, which reported job gains of 118,000, was revised upward by 30,000 to 148,000 jobs.

Small businesses didn’t do much hiring, only adding 25,000 positions — and small businesses of less than 20 employees actually lost 6,000 jobs. The goods-producing sector looked weak with only 28,000 jobs added, as manufacturing dropped by 11,000 jobs. The service sector looked relatively strong, however:

Service-providing jobs increased by 187,000. Among the service industries reported by the ADP National Employment Report, trade/transportation/utilities services had the largest gain with 53,000 jobs added over the month. Professional/business services added 37,000 jobs and financial activities added 14,000 jobs in December.

Although the 215K level would indicate actual growth in terms of population expansion, which requires roughly 125K a month just to keep pace, it’s still far below the kind of robust pace necessary to put the millions of Americans forced out of the workforce back to work. It is the highest level for ADP’s report since February of last year, when the job market was mildly improving. However, assuming that ADP’s report accurately reflects tomorrow’s BLS report, we would have to have 89 months of this kind of growth over population expansion to re-employ 8 million of those who left the workforce over the last four years.

The U.S. Payroll to Population employment rate (P2P), as measured by Gallup, was 44.4% for the month of December, a slight improvement over 43.7% in November. The current P2P rate still does not match the levels of employment seen in July through October, which exceeded 45% and were the highest since Gallup began tracking P2P in January 2010. …

Gallup’s seasonally unadjusted unemployment rate for the U.S. workforce was 7.7% for the month of December, statistically unchanged from 7.8% at the end of November. Gallup’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 7.9%, a 0.4-point decline over November. Gallup calculates a seasonally adjusted unemployment rate by applying the adjustment factor the government used for the same month in the previous year. Last year, the government adjusted December up by 0.2 points.

Underemployment, as measured without seasonal adjustment, was 17.1% in December, unchanged from 17.2% at the end of November. Still, underemployment improved more than a point over December of 2011, when the rate was 18.3%.

Their P2P rate should not be confused with the workforce measures from the BLS. Gallup compares the population as a whole to the employment rate, while the BLS uses two calculations to measure employment to the workforce and to the workforce-eligible population. They have only used the P2P rate for less than three years, which means that a “high” in this series doesn’t mean much, since it began during near-record lows for workforce participation. Still, the move slightly downward in unemployment gives a glint of optimism, depending of course on workforce measures.

In the week ending December 29, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 372,000, an increase of 10,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 362,000. The 4-week moving average was 360,000, an increase of 250 from the previous week’s revised average of 359,750.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.5 percent for the week ending December 22, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending December 22 was 3,245,000, an increase of 44,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,201,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,224,250, an increase of 6,500 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,217,750.

Reporting around the holidays is always tricky, so expect to see some significant adjustments later. Also, we may see a brief burst in claims two reports from now, as people may wait until after the holidays to file their new claims due to travel. We probably won’t see a good, reliable level of reporting until mid-January, but nothing so far suggests that we’re moving out of the 360K-380K range of the last 20 months.

What will be tomorrow’s jobs added figure from the BLS? I’m going to guess 185,000, with an unemployment rate of 7.7%. Take the poll below:

ADP’s brand-new paradigm for predicting job growth in the private sector got off to a somewhat rocky start this morning; their site crashed after the release for a brief period. Their new report, using Moody Analytics, is intended to close the running gap between their projections and the BLS report from the Establishment Survey. Today’s report with the new processes predicts that the US economy added 158,000 jobs in October, above analyst projections but still not a robust rate of growth:

Private sector employment increased by 158,000 jobs from September to October, according to the October ADP National Employment Report®, which is produced by Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP®), a leading provider of human capital management solutions, in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics. The report, which is derived from ADP’s actual payroll data, measures the change in total nonfarm private employment each month on a seasonally-adjusted basis.

Generally speaking, the economy has to add 125,000 jobs each month just to keep up with population growth. This would make October a slightly positive month — if the new processes from Moody Analytics has corrected the chronic overshoot at ADP. Normally, I’d take 60% of the ADP figure and project the BLS number from that. Under that plan, I’d guess that we’re looking at somewhere around 100,000 jobs added in tomorrow’s official report, which would be slightly under the minimum growth necessary.

In the week ending October 27, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 363,000, a decrease of 9,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 372,000. The 4-week moving average was 367,250, a decrease of 1,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 368,750.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.5 percent for the week ending October 20, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending October 20 was 3,263,000, an increase of 4,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,259,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,266,500, a decrease of 6,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,272,750.

The decline in this case isn’t statistically significant. We have operated in a range from 360K-380K since the spring of 2011. The four-week average still lands squarely in that range, as does this week’s level, even without the now-obligatory upward adjustment the next week. While this data isn’t a direct correlation to job growth, as a series it does correlate, at least indirectly, to the health of job creation in the economy. That health hasn’t changed much over the last 18 months.

The private sector created a better-than-expected 158,000 jobs in October, while jobless claims edged lower and productivity rose about as much as expected.

A day after the firm sharply lowered its original count for September, ADP and Macroeconomic Advisors, working now with Moody’s Analytics, said the service sector once again had a big month for job creation.

Services comprised most of the October total, ringing up 144,000 jobs while the goods-producing sector made up the balance at 14,000.

They also note that ADP still hasn’t quite fine-tuned its changes:

The ADP changeover in the way it was handling its monthly job count created a stir Wednesday when the firm said the original 162,000 new positions reported for September actually came down to 88,200 under the new methodology. …

That number was changed again Thursday, revised mildly upward to 114,000, close to the government’s number for the same month.

What does this mean for tomorrow’s BLS report? I would expect the Establishment Survey to report something close to September’s level of job growth, perhaps as high as 120,000 new jobs. However, I would also expect that outlier from the Household Survey last month to correct itself in this report, which would push the jobless rate higher. I’ll guess 8.0% for that part of tomorrow’s report.

What do you think tomorrow’s jobs-added number will be? Take the poll:

Time to start setting our clocks for 8:30 AM ET on Friday. That’s when the BLS will release the penultimate jobs report prior to the vote in November. We’re at T-minus 47:49 hours and counting, which means we have the first of the job-creation indicators from payroll giant ADP. Their monthly analysis of private-sector jobs growth puts expansion at a tepid 162,000:

Employment in the U.S. nonfarm private business sector increased by 162,000 from August to September, on a seasonally adjusted basis. The estimated gains in previous months were revised lower: The July increase was reduced by 17,000 to an increase of 156,000, while the August increase was reduced by 12,000 to an increase of 189,000.

Employment on large payrolls—those with 500 or more workers—increased 17,000 and employment on medium payrolls—those with 50 to 499 workers—rose 64,000 in September. Employment on small payrolls—those with up to 49 workers—rose 81,000 that same period. Of the 64,000 jobs created on medium-sized payrolls, 10,000 jobs were created by the goods producing sector and 54,000 jobs were created by the service-providing sector.

Even if this is the actual expansion number in the BLS report, it’s not much to cheer. We add ~200K people to the population each month on average, and at the current (historic low) civilian participation rate of 63.5%, we’d need to add 126,000 jobs just to stay in place. At the rate of adding an additional 36K excess jobs per month, we’d make up the 8 million jobs we’re short now by, oh … early 2031.

However, the ADP report usually — although not always — overshoots the BLS number. The rule of thumb I use is to take 60% of the ADP prediction and use it as a gauge for what the BLS will report. That puts this month’s report at 97,200, or perhaps a round up to 100K. That’s even less to cheer, although it might be tepid enough for Barack Obama to shrug off. That’s not far off from the consensus this week, reported by CNBC, of 118,000 jobs. In fact, CNBC notes that ADP is usually excessively rosy:

The private sector created 162,000 jobs in September, a bit better than expected, as the service sector continued to be the economy’s main employment driver, according to the latest ADP numbers. …

Though economists sometimes change their nonfarm payrolls expectation based on the number, ADP’s count can be volatile and dramatically off the government’s official total, which will be released Friday.

In September, ADP raised hopes that the jobs engine was humming along, with the private sector creating 201,000 positions in August. However, when the government released its own count it found that the actual overall total for the economy was just 96,000 new jobs.

Economists expect the nonfarm payroll number for September to be around 118,000.

U.S. nongovernment workers reported worse job creation conditions in September than they have in any month since February. Gallup’s Job Creation Index score of +21 among nongovernment workers is down from +23 in August and a high of +25 in April. At the same time, the job creation climate within state and local government became even more positive, helping to sustain U.S. job creation nationally. …

Nongovernment workers, which include private- and nonprofit-sector workers, continue to report the most job creation overall, but September’s score marks a retreat from the higher numbers of the previous six months and a movement toward the level seen at the start of the year. Because nongovernment workers make up more than 80% of the monthly sample of employed workers, the decline in that sector helped push the overall national average slightly lower in September.

I’d expect something around 95K. We’ll see what the weekly jobs claim data looks like tomorrow.

Update: A couple of commenters note the adjustment made by the BLS to the total number of jobs, adding 368,000 jobs to the total current employed. The adjustments from those additions have already been made to past reports, and won’t get dumped into this report. It will impact the top-line jobless rate, but the impact will be minimal. In the August 2012 report, there were 142.101 million jobs overall; the addition amounts to 0.26% of that total — not nothing, but not exactly a game-changer, especially if September produces a poor level of new job creation.

Two key indicators on employment show a hint of moderate job growth for August 2012, one day ahead of the official report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. First, weekly jobless claims dropped slightly to 365,000 last week, according to the Department of Labor:

In the week ending September 1, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 365,000, a decrease of 12,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 377,000. The 4-week moving average was 371,250, an increase of 250 from the previous week’s revised average of 371,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6 percent for the week ending August 25, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending August 25 was 3,322,000, a decrease of 6,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,328,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,320,750, a decrease of 3,500 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,324,250.

That’s still within the same 360-380K band we’ve seen from this series for the last 17 months. The one-week drop wasn’t enough to outweigh increases in the previous three weeks, which is why the rolling average edged up slightly. However, all of these changes are within the range of statistical noise. None of them indicate a serious move in any direction except continuation of the status quo.

Next, ADP released its projection of job growth in the private sector, which offers better news:

Employment in the U.S. nonfarm private business sector increased by 201,000 from July to August, on a seasonally adjusted basis. The estimated gain from June to July was revised up from the initial estimate of 163,000 to 173,000.

Employment in the private, service-providing sector expanded 185,000 in August, up from 156,000 in July. Employment in the private, goods-producing sector added 16,000 jobs in August. Manufacturing employment rose 3,000, following an increase of 6,000 in July.

Employment on large payrolls—those with 500 or more workers—increased 16,000 and employment on medium payrolls—those with 50 to 499 workers—rose 86,000 in August. Employment on small payrolls—those with up to 49 workers—rose 99,000 that same period. Of the 86,000 jobs created on medium- sized payrolls, 12,000 jobs were created by the goods producing sector and 74,000 jobs were created by the service-providing sector.

The problem with ADP is that it usually overshoots the mark significantly. The use of ADP works better as a trend indicator rather than as a precise predictor of BLS outcomes. Last month, however, the unadjusted number was identical to the overall addition of 163K jobs to the economy. This month, the ADP number is slightly higher, which means one has to determine whether to buy into the trend and expect something similar from tomorrow’s report, or whether to fall back to the ~60% figure that eliminates the normal overstatement from ADP.

Economists could ratchet up current expectations of 125,000 new jobs and an unchanged unemployment rate of 8.3 percent, though the jobs picture remains cloudy.

“We still have a long ways to go, and given our macro forecast for the rest of the year into next year I’m not expecting a further acceleration in the monthly employment gains,” Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisors, told CNBC.

Prakken said the ADP number could suggest a “slight decline” in the jobless rate.

Wall Street had been expecting ADP to show about 145,000 new jobs.

However, the Gallup survey — which mirrors the same techniques as the BLS — comes to the opposite conclusion, expecting a slight tick upward in the jobless rate:

U.S. unemployment, as measured by Gallup without seasonal adjustment, is 8.1% for the month of August, down slightly from 8.3% measured in mid-August and 8.2% for the month of July. Gallup’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for August is also 8.1%, a slight uptick from 8.0% at the end of July. …

U.S. unemployment declined significantly during the first part of the year, but August marks the third straight month with little change in the unadjusted number. Gallup’s estimate of adjusted unemployment has increased by 0.3 percentage points since June. Despite the lackluster jobs growth, August’s 2012 unadjusted and adjusted unemployment are each more than a full point lower than they were in August 2011.

Underemployment, as measured without seasonal adjustment, was 17.1% in August, unchanged from the end of July but significantly improved from 18.5% a year ago. Gallup’s U.S. underemployment measure combines the percentage who are unemployed with the percentage of those working part time but looking for full-time work. Gallup does not apply a seasonal adjustment to underemployment. Demographic breakouts of Gallup’s U.S. unemployment and underemployment numbers for August are found on page 2.

Two weeks ago, Gallup was seeing an uptick in unemployment, which may have smoothed out as the back-to-school season approached. We’ll see soon enough.

Let’s offer the same poll on job additions in tomorrow’s report that we’ve used the last few months. I’ll predict an addition of 121,000 jobs, with the jobless rate remaining 8.3%. What do you think tomorrow’s job additions will be?

Time to start breaking out the predictive indicators for Friday’s jobs report on employment in June! First up, as always, comes from private-sector payroll giant ADP, which uses its own customer base to estimate job growth in non-government positions. Today’s report predicts an increase of 163,000 private-sector jobs in July:

Employment in the U.S. nonfarm private business sector increased by 163,000 from June to July, on a seasonally adjusted basis. The estimated gain from May to June was revised down slightly, from the initial estimate of 176,000 to 172,000.

Employment in the private, service-providing sector expanded 148,000 in July after rising a revised 151,000 in June. The private, goods-producing sector added 15,000 jobs in July. Manufacturing employment rose 6,000 this month, following a revised increase of 9,000 in June. Employment on large payrolls—those with 500 or more workers—increased 23,000 and employment on medium payrolls—those with 50 to 499 workers—rose 67,000 in July.

Employment on small payrolls—those with up to 49 workers—rose 73,000 that same period. Of the 67,000 jobs created on medium-sized payrolls, 4,000 jobs were created by the goodsproducing sector and 63,000 jobs were created by the service-providing sector.

That sounds like good news on the surface, but this series almost always overstates the BLS figures — usually by a considerable margin. For instance, the 176K predicted by ADP for June turned into just 80K for the official BLS numbers. May’s ADP increase of 129K ended up as 69K from the BLS. Using ADP to figure out actual numbers for the BLS is a bit of a fool’s errand.

However, the ADP series usually tracks well as a trend indicator. The trend downward signals that July’s numbers aren’t going to be much better than June’s, and might be slightly worse. Unfortunately, a combined article at CNBC from AP and Reuters stories treats the ADP report as a numeric indicator rather than a trend indicator, at least in its lead:

A private survey shows U.S. businesses kept hiring at a modest pace in July, suggesting the job market could be improving after three sluggish months.

Payroll provider ADP said Wednesday that businesses added 163,000 jobs last month. That’s slightly below a revised total of 172,000 jobs it reported for June.

The report only covers hiring in the private sector and excludes government job growth. The Labor Department will offer a more complete picture of July hiring on Friday.

The ADP survey offered some hope that hiring is picking up. But it has often deviated sharply from the government report. In June, the Labor Department said employers added just 80,000 jobs, less than half the figure reported by ADP.

CNBC reports that analysts expect a modest improvement from June to 100,000 jobs added in Friday’s report. Based on the track record of ADP and the trend from May to June and June to July, I’d guess that 75K is a better estimate of job growth. Neither would be enough to actually add jobs in relation to population growth, which requires between 125K-150K jobs added each month.

Manufacturing in the U.S. unexpectedly contracted for a second month in July, indicating a mainstay of the economy was struggling to improve.

The Institute for Supply Management‘s factory index was little changed at 49.8 last month from 49.7 in June. Fifty marks the dividing line between expansion and contraction. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News projected a reading of 50.2, according to the median estimate.

Cutbacks in household purchases, unemployment exceeding 8 percent, Europe’s debt crisis and slower global growth threaten to further restrain an industry that’s been a source of strength for the economy. Factories may also temper production as companies curb spending out of concern that lawmakers will fail to prevent automatic government spending cuts and higher taxes from going into effect next year.

Estimates in the Bloomberg survey of 84 economists ranged from 48.5 to 52 for the Tempe, Arizona-based ISM’s factory report.

]]>http://hotair.com/archives/2012/08/01/adp-jobs-report-shows-slowing-in-july/feed/57209897Analyst: Expect tomorrow’s net jobs gain to be … 54,000http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/31/analyst-expect-tomorrows-net-jobs-gain-to-be-54000/
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/31/analyst-expect-tomorrows-net-jobs-gain-to-be-54000/#commentsThu, 31 May 2012 19:21:10 +0000http://hotair.com/?p=198382"The probability of an acceleration of that down move is high over the next two quarters."

Really? Expectations among economic analysts for tomorrow’s job number revolve around a mediocre 150,000, which an earlier CNBC report called “sharply higher” over April’s 115,000 added jobs, which is an absurd description; that’s barely outside of a margin-of-error revision. Today’s even-more mediocre ADP report still pegged private-sector growth at 133,000, and while ADP tends to come in high, that would be a rather significant miss.

Still, MIG Bank’s Ron William tells CNBC that expectations are overstated, and that the trends and momentum portend a much lower level of job creation than even the water-treading level suggested by ADP. In fact, it’s likely to get even worse this summer, and perhaps drop into negative territory:

When looking at an economic indicator from a technical analysis perspective, the factors to look at are key levels, changes in momentum, cycles and correlation, according to Ron William, a technical analyst at MIG Bank.

“Nonfarm payroll has been decelerating since the beginning of 2012,” William told CNBC.com. “The probability of an acceleration of that down move is high over the next two quarters.”

The data lost positive momentum after failing to hold above the 2011 high of 251,000, and has also remained beneath a multiyear ceiling of around 340,000. During January 2012 “the loss of upside momentum triggered a DeMark exhaustion signal,” he said.

An exhaustion signal usually indicates a reversal in the trend. The DeMark Indicators are a collection of sophisticated market-timing tools created by Tom DeMark over the course of nearly 40 years in the financial industry.

“The key level that everyone in the market should be focusing on [for nonfarm payrolls] is 54,000,” William added. “I think that over the multimonth period the probability favors that we test this area and maybe move into negative territory if it is confirmed.”

Over the next two quarters? That’s exactly what the White House and Barack Obama’s campaign don’t want to hear. They have insisted that Obama has built momentum for economic growth, and the winter seemed to have hinted at some kind of momentum shift to the positive. Now we’re looking at the potential for job numbers to return to sub-100K growth levels, and potentially back in the red. That’s not the kind of momentum that wins elections.

On the other hand, reader and commenter DogSoldier wonders whether this might be a bit of an expectations-management game in the investor community. By getting a worst-case scenario on the table today, a mediocre result tomorrow might do less damage. I’m not sure that the difference between the two points is significant enough for that to work, though, since even a 150K result will look stagnant and breed pessimism about summer growth.

Let’s take a poll to predict tomorrow’s numbers. Rather than guess the rate this month, let’s focus on net job growth in tomorrow’s report. What level do you expect to see? I’ll predict a net job gain of 90,000 and an unemployment rate of 8.2%.

Tomorrow, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the latest official jobs figures, one of the most closely-watched economic indicators from the federal government. One predictive indicator of the direction that report will take is the monthly analysis from payroll-processing giant ADP, which uses its clients as a sample to predict job non-government growth. Today’s report hints at continued mediocrity — at best:

Employment in the U.S. nonfarm private business sector increased by 133,000 from April to May on a seasonally adjusted basis. The estimated gain from March to April was revised down modestly, from the initial estimate of 119,000 to a revised estimate of 113,000.

Employment on large payrolls—those with 500 or more workers—increased 9,000 and employment on medium payrolls—those with 50 to 499 workers—rose 57,000 in May. Employment on small payrolls—those with up to 49 workers—rose 67,000 that same period. Of the 57,000 jobs created by medium-sized payrolls, 2,000 jobs were created by the goods-producing sector and 55,000 jobs were created by the service-providing sector.

Construction employment fell by 1,000 in May, its second consecutive decline following six monthly advances that likely were driven in part by unusually warm weather during the winter months.

That’s going to disappoint some analysts today, including those at CNBC:

Private-sector jobs growth came in at a disappointingly weak 133,000 from April to May, according to a report from ADP and Macroeconomic Advisors that adds to a bleak outlook for employment. …

Economists had expected the report to show nongovernment jobs grew by 150,000.

Usually (although not always), the ADP numbers overshoot the BLS estimation for job creation. The BLS will also take into account the public sector, which has been shrinking steadily since the peak of 2010 in stimulus and Census spending. Even if ADP makes a dead-on call in the private sector, we’re looking at something less than 133K in net job growth, which would barely keep pace with population growth.

However, that’s not the only indicator we have for tomorrow’s numbers. According to another analysis from Wall Street, layoffs jumped 53% in May, which means that ADP’s figures are hopelessly optimistic:

Job cuts jumped by 53 percent in May from April in the United States, withHewlett-Packard’s layoffspropelling the computer industry to the top spot among the biggest job cutters this year, a report by consultancy firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas showed on Thursday.

Employers announced plans to cut 61,887 staff from their payrolls in May, 67 percent more than in the same month of last year. The figure represents the most job cuts since last September.

The computer industry got the worst of it, but they weren’t the only sector to get hit hard:

Another area to watch is the food industry, where job cuts are up 75 percent this year and where Hostess Brands – markers of Twinkies and Wonder Bread – filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the report said.

Right on top of that, the Department of Labor reports a 10,000-claim jump in initial weekly jobless claims:

In the week ending May 26, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 383,000, an increase of 10,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 373,000. The 4-week moving average was 374,500, an increase of 3,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 370,750.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6 percent for the week ending May 19, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending May 19 was 3,242,000, a decrease of 36,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,278,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,263,750, a decrease of 12,000 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,275,750.

Note that last week’s numbers got revised upward for the 62nd time in 63 weeks, or the 63rd time in 64 weeks. Honestly, I’ve lost count. This still is in the same statistical ballpark as most of the rest of the year, but it just went in the wrong direction at the same time as a host of other negative indicators appeared. That will leave a mark.

If we come in less than the population-growth expansion level in tomorrow’s numbers, the Obama administration may need to start hitting the panic button. They cannot go through another Wreckovery Summer and hope to win re-election — and for all practical purposes, voters will shortly start locking in their final impressions of the economy and its direction this summer.